Morning journal and courier., 1887-07-06

-CORREsPONDENcK.
From StrasburG to Luxerne-Raden
Baden-The Waters Constance-At
zurfeh-AbOut ConsuIs


Schwarzevald, from Constance to Zurich and
from Zurich here. Not very consistent or
logical route, but when you are led about by
fancy there is no telling where from day to
day your fancy may take you. Baden Baden
is emerging from the comparative dullness
which overshadowed it after the suppression
of its public gambling tables. In old times
the waters of Baden Baden were secondary.
They were known to be hot, salt and nause-
ating. People took them as they take dose
of salts. Some physicians claimed that they
possessed wonderful curative powers; and a
few confirmed dyspeptics went away cured
and happy. But the gambling table was the
chief attraction-was the center of Baden
Baden life. If you did not play yourself
you watched the play of others. You be-
came as deeply interested in their calcula-
tions as if your own purse was involved.
The person who was losing heavily was
pointed OUT and the party who broke the
bank was greater lion than the grand duke.
If at table the conversation became general
it was of schemes that assured success.
Someone had new theory which excited the
hopes of tyros and made the old stagers
member well, stated that for twenty years he
had put aside yearly twenty-five thousand
francs for his fun, and never but once had he
failed to lose every centime of it. When the
law was passed it was supposed to be Ba
den's death knell, and for while 1T did
look as if the town were doomed. But q
change has taken place. Philosophical
physicians have lately discovered that the
waters contain ingredients never before
dreamed of; arsenic and ithia in appreciable
quantities, and in larger quantities than any
other waters offer. Other shrewd and equal
ly public-spirited physicians have written
pamphlets to prove that the waters of Baden
Baden with their present show of arsenic
and ithia are the very best possible remedy
for gout. Gout is the most profitable of dis
eases. II equity man visit spring he gen.
orally brings with him large family; and a
gouty mans family is apt to be composed of
those who are spending lots of money In do~
ing their best to be able one of these days to
keep up the ancestral reputation. Whence
the renewed wealth of Baden. That the
Badeners are serious in their representations
is attested by the magnificent Friedrichsbad
lately erected at a cost of many million
marks. A grander and more complete bath
ing establishment does not exist. Here not
only are the waters administered in every
possible manner, but there are all sorts OF
mechanical contrivances for untwlst1ng cork
screwed joints and assisting in the use of
| long disused limbs. Singularly enough the
| inventor of the contrivances got many of his
| ideas from the torture chamber in the old
| cattle on the hill. OF course he is a hom-
| oepathist That the waters are eficaelous Is
| further proved by the thousands and thou
sands of poor folks, with only vulgar rheu-
| matism to boast Of who come early in the
spring SO as to be able to get away before the
/ advent of the fashionable gout. All the
| hotels are now opened and as early as
1 In1
/ full with Germans, Dutch and Scandinavi-
| ans, who are lodged and boarded at six
| francs day, as we'll as are the English and
| Americans during July and August for thir-
| ty. During the first part of June Baden is
| forlorn. 1t is between seasons. Then hotels
| and shops avail themselves of the hiatus to
| put away their cheap garments and to array
| themselves extravagantly.
There is new road direct to Constance,
| branching off from the old road to Basle at
Offenbure and going right through the heart
| of the Black Forest. sad journey, be-
cause in all the fields were women working,
and little children; gray-headed- old women
down on their knees in potato patches weed
ing with their fingers. Women drawing
/ carts filed high with hay; now and then a
man, but very rarely; and he generally SO
old and weak that it made your heart bleed
to see him. How terrible the cost of keep
ing good the line of defence against the
Frenchl But one horse in all the journey;
now and then cow mutely protesting
1 against being used OK. And when you
| got way up amid the hill tops and the train
| was swinging in aud out of circular tunnels
1 the grandeur and beauty of the mountains
made but little impression, for eyes were
| still filled with the mist arising from the sad
| scenes in the valley. Way up on top where
| the waters of the Rhine and Danube divide
are rich villages, grown SO by the manutac-
| turing of cuckoo clocks; that and nothing
| more Hundreds of thousands of them are
manufactured and exported yearly. Is it at
| all wonderful that the country is full of lu-
| natics and that suiciding should be deemed
a wholesome recreation? Constance does
not get its due from the ordinary tourist. 1t
| is too one side of the beaten track. If he
| must enter Switzerland from Germany the
| traveller goes through Constance without
| stopping, hurrying to Lucerne; yet Con-
stance is beautiful; episodes in its history
are of value to the philosophical student,
| while the memory of Huss and his martyr
/ dom should r:ake the place sacred to every
| lover of Professionalism. The Insel Hotel oe-
cupies the Dominican convent where Huss
| was imprisoned after his seizure. If fortu-
nate you may occupy room in the tower
| where he was chained. The convent church
| is now the hotel dining room. You walk
4 through the cloisters to get to it. Where is
| there another place where modern life and
| medieval history come SO closely and oddly
/ together? You seem to be walking, talking,
| dining with men who were buried four hun
dred years ago. The impression with which
/ YOU are received at the hotel is SO strong that
| all points of interest in Constance have a
1 peculiar liveliness. According to tradition,
| when Huss received his sentence in the ca
/ thedral of the town he was standing in the
| nave on slab of stone newly cut and which
| had not yet become thoroughly dry. When
| he left the church it was noticed that the
| stone directly beneath where he had stood
was white and dry, while the rest of it was
| of the gray color of moisture. And SO it
has remained to this day. Account for it as
| you please, there it is-and it is as if Huss
| had but just stepped away from it and you had
house where he stopped before his arrest, on
| it his medallion put up-so it is said-but a
| ghort time after his execution, and these
verses under it:
Owe mir armen Knopf!
/ Hier nam mann mich bein schopf,
Rierbier ich entrannen
| Bin doch net kummen aup der g far
| Then 60 out to the place of his execution
| and read of his deneanor while the devour-
/ ing flames were circling about him. The
place is perfectly fiat, SO that pictures that
| place the scene on hill are wrong. In the
cathedral you are shown the tomb of Otho
| III, bishop of Constance during the council,
| to whom Huss appealed in vain for rescue.
| The whole town is full of Huss. You come
/ away with the conviction that history, to be
impressive, sn0ulo pe reao IN s1tu, ana tnat
| historic monuments should be multiplied
| tenfold. The philosophical student of histo-
| ry may speculate whether there be any con-
| nection between Huss' martyrdom and the
| fact that the doctrines of the reformation
| took no strong hold of the convictions of the
inhabitants of Constance, and that when the
city was joined to Austria no vestige of Pro-
testantism remained. The people of Con-
/ stance fought splendidly against Gustavus
Adolphus and to this day they remain among
| the most devotedly attached of Rome's chill
| dren. The point is this: the effect of force
on conscience. We live in miserable age
that ignores force and every department of
life suffers in consequence.
At Zurich you come suddenly back to the
nineteenth century, and Huss and Hierony-
mus fade away as if they had never been.
You are in the midst of one of the busiest
and most enterprislng communities of its
| size in Europe Just now the Zurichers are